Camus certainly is the most popular worldwide, yet he has no votes....

by Anonymous

reply 4

12/03/2012

Really, really, really tough choice. I opted for Proust, but any on that list could win and it'd be justified.

by Anonymous

reply 5

12/03/2012

Flaubert, OP, the answer is always going to be Flaubert.

by Anonymous

reply 6

12/03/2012

J'accuse, OP!

by Anonymous

reply 7

12/03/2012

[quote]Bitch is prejudiced! by: Gerard de Nerval

You never wrote a novel, Gerard.

by Anonymous

reply 8

12/03/2012

Liar, R8. "Aurelia" for example.

by Anonymous

reply 9

12/03/2012

Andre Maurois

by Anonymous

reply 10

12/03/2012

Jules Michelet and Michel Foucault

So clever with the sources they passed themselves off as non-fiction writers!

by Anonymous

reply 11

12/03/2012

George Sand

Simone de Beauvoir

Jean-Paul Sartre

by Anonymous

reply 12

12/03/2012

Irma LaDouche

by Anonymous

reply 13

12/03/2012

I voted for Balzac because his name is the same as a Frenchman's private parts.

by Anonymous

reply 14

12/03/2012

Jules Verne.

by Anonymous

reply 15

12/04/2012

I am glad some one remembered Malraux, he seems somewhat forgotten today. Stendhal is my favorite - I have read The Red and the Black many times, it is my favorite book.

But, r6 is correct - it's Flaubert.

by Anonymous

reply 16

12/04/2012

Flaubert.

His never-ending search for "le mot juste" paid off.

by Anonymous

reply 17

12/04/2012

Who was the lesbian that wrote The Abyss? She should be on the list.

by Anonymous

reply 18

12/04/2012

I don't see why Flaubert is so well liked. He was mean to us!

by Anonymous

reply 19

12/04/2012

So let me get this straight. Proust and Flaubert are geniuses because they were rich kids who could afford to spend five years on a few hundred pages? Don't make laugh! It is the characters, which matter, not the language!

by Anonymous

reply 20

12/04/2012

No Andre Gide in this list?

by Anonymous

reply 21

12/04/2012

D'oh there it is! Seriously underrated novelist in my opinion.

by Anonymous

reply 22

12/04/2012

i have read all of the above (except for Louis-Ferdinand Celine) and i like them all. However if i have to pick up one from this, i would pick....wait! I can't pick only one from this list! At least let me pick...four! So i give my votes to Andre Gide, Honore de Balzac, Marcel Proust and Victor Hugo.

By the way,from your beautiful list misses Francois Mauriac, one of the greatest French novelists.

:)

by Anonymous

reply 23

12/04/2012

*if i had

by Anonymous

reply 24

12/04/2012

'Novel' is too limited a category for excellence in French writers. I feel that the French developed both the essay and the short short (comte) as an art form.

Zola, Voltaire. Gide and Genet excelled in multiple genres of writing. I also feel that de Maupassant's short stories are top-notch.

Candide remains one of my personal faves. I am not sure if would 'fit' into the current definition of a novel as it is also both brilliant social satire.

by Anonymous

reply 25

12/04/2012

There are no women in this list. What happened to Madame de Stael, George Sand, Colette and Marguerite Yourcenar?

by Anonymous

reply 26

12/04/2012

Nance from Delray,unfortunately i only know Colette and George Sand from your list and i only have read the first one. The other two escaped me...

by Anonymous

reply 27

12/04/2012

Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) is best-known as the author of "Memoirs of Hadrian." She was also the first woman to be inducted into the prestigious French Academy.

Germaine Necker, Madame de Stael (1766-1817) wrote "Corinne" as well as several works of non-fiction. She was also a famous salonniere and political opponent of Napoleon.

by Anonymous

reply 28

12/04/2012

Were "The Adventures of Tin-Tin" written in French?

by Anonymous

reply 29

12/04/2012

Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly was also a noticeable French writer. I have read his fiction novel 'L'Ensorcelée'(Bewitched) and i found it really gripping.

I read in Wiki that he had a decisive influence on writers such as Henry James and Marcel Proust.

by Anonymous

reply 30

12/04/2012

de Sade

by Anonymous

reply 31

12/04/2012

R31 hehehehe!

by Anonymous

reply 32

12/04/2012

Huysmans

by Anonymous

reply 33

12/04/2012

Anatole France

by Anonymous

reply 34

12/04/2012

Ask Dubya...he knows ALL about KA-MOO.

by Anonymous

reply 35

12/04/2012

Michel Tremblay

by Anonymous

reply 36

12/04/2012

We are interested in French, not francophone authors. Otherwise we'd have to consider Anne Hebert and Hubert Aquin.

by Anonymous

reply 37

12/04/2012

I'm so used to being ignored by racist pigs like the OP. Even though I was the most widely read French writer in history, it took the establishment 132 years to honor me with burial in the Pantheon.

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